


Scales

by bittersweetoranges



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Light Angst, That sick fic except nobody's sick just injured, mermaid au, more tags to come
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-18
Updated: 2017-02-18
Packaged: 2018-09-25 08:04:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 777
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9810596
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bittersweetoranges/pseuds/bittersweetoranges
Summary: A questionable life choice led Yamaguchi Tadashi into a disagreement with an underwater current and into stranger shores and even stranger coves with an even stranger stranger.The chimes of home are everywhere they shouldn't be, healing scars that have nothing to do with current events, and singing in ways he never dreamed of.Maybe, just maybe, his choices aren't so questionable after all.





	

  


Tadashi gulps in air like he’s never tasted it. The cold stings at his open wounds, and he finds himself shivering as he drags himself onto the shore. Dull gray sand enters the wounds and Tadashi grits his teeth at the white-hot pain searing through him.

Waves roar against the rocks, almost as loud as his heart slamming against his rib cage. His eyes dart around his surroundings. But he can’t see. Everything seems dark to his eyes. He barely registers the sharp edges peeking at the end of his periphery. He remembers the caves from home, and the wistful song of his mom that used to lull him to sleep. He tries to hum along, but the notes don’t sync. The darkness sweeps his vision, and his head clears. 

... 

He first hears the muffled bells defining a word he’s heard only before he became alone.  
Then something ghosts his shoulder. Thinking it was those pesky starfish he shrugs it off only to jerk forward and curl into himself, his bones creaking in protest. His mouth is too dry for him to be comfortably in the water. He opens his eyes and the brightness sends him reeling.  
He’s on a beach hidden beneath a cave. Rocks jut down from above the ceiling, he tries to recall what the books said they were and fails. The tide lazily hugs the shoreline further from where it was… yesterday?

“You’re alive!”

Tadashi had grown out of his belief that seaweed monsters exist, but he’s thinking of taking it all back. A splotchy face hangs over him, water drips freely from its face and the brown seaweed framing it.

“I’m so relieved! Are you alright?”

He doesn’t reply, he’s too tired to, and tries to nod his head instead. The thing makes a wet sound and wipes it face. “I’m so glad.”

They smile, and their brown-eyes, red-rimmed from crying, twinkle in the dim light.  
Tadashi tries to swallow, and ends up coughing instead.

There is no seaweed monster, just an unusually wet human.

The human starts fretting around for something, but Tadashi is too preoccupied trying not to hack out his heart to decipher the words.

“Errr, I have water here. How do I--”  
He hears a slapping sound, but before he's able to investigate the sound he’s lifted up. The cuts on his tail get dragged in the sand, but the warmth of the human’s arm supporting his back and a cup being brought to his lips, distract him for feeling the pain too keenly.

“Breathe,” they say. And it’s only when he’s steady in their arms do they allow him to drink. The water is lukewarm and heavenly down his throat.

The human pours him a second cup, then some more. Until eventually, there’s nothing left.

His stomach sinks a bit at the notion. But Tadashi still wants to thank them, so he looks up and tries to speak. But the human isn’t looking at him. Their hair’s dried out a bit, curled and a dusty gold rather than brown.

“You… you need more water.” They say, and he’s gingerly placed back on the sand before he can put a word in.

They stand up. “Don’t, uh...” the brown eyes flit between his tail and his face for a moment, “I’ll be back.”

And the human leaves for somewhere beyond his eyesight.

Left with no choice but to wait, Tadashi breathes in the salty winds. Water crashing against rocks nearly drown out the sound of feet on the sand. He looks up nervously at the stalactites -- yes, that’s what they were called -- looming overhead. He hopes they don’t fall, because even laying still on the ground hurt let alone dodging a rapidly falling sharp rock. At the same time, it isn’t exactly an unbearable kind of pain. He can crawl to the shore, probably. But seeing as he didn’t know what time it is, the current current is more likely to put him in a worse state.  
And then there’s the human. He recalls their eyes, and hums. The notes feel better now that he wasn’t drying. He rests his eyes.

The human, Tadashi thinks, is a girl. He dimly recalls notes saying that human females grew their hair long. He wrinkles his nose at the thought. At home, it didn’t even matter.

He’ll ask her about the hair thing and the time when -- and if -- she comes back.

He gets a few more moments to himself and was slowly drifting off when he hears the muffled bells again. The nostalgic tinkling is accompanied by shifting sand, but the waves crash over once more and Tadashi falls asleep.

**Author's Note:**

> doe eyes are the least of your problems Yamaguchi  
> I'd like to thank Just Kiss for giving me an avenue to write out AUs that have been haunting me.
> 
> Do tell me if you find something amiss. Thank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed.


End file.
